when to pick homegrown mushrooms

mushrooms are coming towards their birthday,
so i was just rereading the PF tek on shroomery to make sure everything is ready for their home, there is one thing that is confusing though...

so when are they supposed to be picked
how small and immature should they be picked so they are more potent? and are the small primordia savable or should they just be left to do their thing?
does anyone have pictures of how they should look when they're ready to be picked or what the veil looks like around the time they should be picked?



thanks

 

To clarify, that is a little out-of-date. More mature mushrooms aren't weaker in potency per se, but have less psilocybin/psilocin per mass than the smaller ones. The psilocybin/psilocin content doesn't raise or lower but the size of the mushroom does. So with that, there is no perfect or agreeable time to harvest your babies. Just let the veil break or pick when the cap starts to open. Unless you want to make spore prints, letting it fully mature is pointless and will just make a mess of spores in your substrates.

oh and a broken veil will look like.. well.. a broken veil, lol. it will look torn, usually drooping to one side.

 

ohk so just wait until they are grown up to when their caps start to open? thank you for the response

 

as long as you get em off the substrate before they drop spores you are good, as a general rule of thumb.

 

drop spores eh? eh?

 

If they are for you own personal use pick them small, less bulk to eat and as the shroomery quote you used said potency isn't increased with size.

good


not so good

 

right on thanks bro

 

Agreed.

...Spores make mushrooms taste :ack2:.

But make sure you let some open for prints.

 

I like to let them open a little for aesthetic value. Just a personal preference. Something bout the black gills....

 

I usually pick them as soon as the veil completely pops, unless I want to print them. If I'm printing, I let them go completely plane. I've never noticed much difference in potency between either.

 

I was actually thinking about this very thing last week after having some shrooms that were all mostly fully opened and were not near as potent gram for gram as ones I had that were still closed caps. Then it dawned on me that the level of active ingredients hits a peak and then the shrooms just bulk up. So the larger size one doesn't really contain more activety than a small one.
I'm sure that is why shamans and currendero's dose mushrooms by count and not by weight.